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Call for papers #37

Aparicio's Oil: Medical Secrets and Royal Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Spain

Michele L. Clouse, Assistant Professor, Ohio University

During the reign of Philip II, the Spanish crown often sponsored well-known itinerant healers and empirics and brought them to court, much to the dismay of elite physicians and surgeons just as in the rest of Europe. Aparicio de Zubia was one such empiric (medical practitioner with no formal university-training, who practiced in the vulgar tongue and who treated a wide variety of illnesses involving both internal and external remedies) who claimed to have discovered a marvelous medicinal liquor--an herbal composition effective in various diseases and especially for wounds--thereby allowing patients to avoid the popular cures involving surgical instruments, blood-letting and purges. The boundary between empirics (who treated a wide variety of illnesses) and surgeons (who specialized in treating injuries and illnesses that demanded cutting) was not yet rigidly defined and the crown, under the guidance of Philip II, took significant steps to define such practice on the one hand, and create an atmosphere of cooperation on the other. The crown's efforts fostered the exchange of ideas between university-trained physicians and surgeons and non-university trained surgeons and empiric practitioners like Aparicio, which were crucial to the development of surgery and surgical techniques in early modern Spain. Philip II's intervention in the medical marketplace created an atmosphere of inclusion and tacit acceptance among the diverse body of medical and surgical practitioners, affording a large number of empirics like Aparicio de Zubia opportunities to participate legitimately in the medical marketplace and to contribute to the corpus of accepted medical knowledge and practice. At Aparicio's death, the crown took steps to procure the secret remedy, the "oil of Aparicio." It became known as the "king's oil" or oleum magistrale and was extensively used both in Spain and in its colonial holdings. It was also known internationally and accepted by some members of the medical community as far away as England who coveted the secret remedy.